


Did You Ever Think?

by quitehamish



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, Mary is only vaguely mentioned, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7560928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quitehamish/pseuds/quitehamish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Shh, shh... That's right, I've got you.” </p><p>Sherlock swallows hard around the lump in his throat and hugs a pillow to his chest.</p><p>“Don't you know much I love you? I would do anything for you,” John murmurs upstairs, voice crackling over the baby monitor. Sherlock knows that John knows he can hear him. Knows that John's words are for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did You Ever Think?

**Author's Note:**

> This is very fluffy and unbeta'ed! Also Mary's fate is not mentioned, so choose your own adventure on that one lol. I may have more stories to write in this particular universe, we'll see :)
> 
> Side note, I'm not a big proponent of parentlock on the show, but god do I love fic about it. I'm on tumblr at aborteddeclarationoflove.tumblr.com!

Their first night back in 221b together is... very them. Quiet, but filled with meaning.

Earlier in the day, Mrs. Hudson offers to take the baby for a few hours but a deadly serious Sherlock pauses cleaning to tell her that she mustn't. That they need to acclimate, all three of them together. He wonders but can't deduce whether John has mentioned the baby's name yet to her.

John takes his suitcase and a diaper bag up the staircase while Sherlock memorizes Martha's face on the sofa. He's tempted to tell John to just leave the diapers and things downstairs but there will be plenty of time to convince him later, once he's stopped tiptoeing.

“How'd you do that?” Sherlock realizes with a start that John is standing over him, looking down at them both with an indescribable look in his eyes. John gestures at Martha, tinier than a loaf of bread and looking like her father, brow furrowed in her sleep, chubby hand curled around Sherlock's thumb. “She cried the whole way here.”

Sherlock tells himself that John's voice didn't falter, didn't almost say home. He and Martha have the same eyes and he feels weak already for them both.

“She's had quite a few days,” Sherlock says, then hates himself. “Tired, I suppose,” he finishes lamely.

The sofa lets out a poofing noise as John sinks into the cushion next to him, close enough that Sherlock can feel John's breaths. They both watch Martha's eyelids flutter through innocent dreams. John traces Martha's little hand, and the hair on Sherlock's arm raises when John's finger brazenly brushes the sensitive skin of Sherlock's inner wrist. Bewilderingly, John's hand pulls away only to settle carefully on Sherlock's knee. (A hazy memory unlodges itself in Sherlock's mind.)

John is very quiet when he speaks next. “I don't know how to be a father.”

Sherlock protests immediately. “You're already doing it, John. You saved her, and you brought her here. She has you. She has me.” He forces himself to add, “She... you two... have a... home. For however long you want.”

John's eyes glisten and Sherlock dutifully looks at Martha, giving John his moment. No one has ever successfully manhandled John Watson into a conversation, plus Sherlock trusts the man whose warm palm is cradling his bony knee.

He's right to. John is always brave in the end.

“What if...” John shifts closer on the sofa, soft pressure pushing ebbing warmth through Sherlock's knee and the rest of his body. “What if that's all I want.”

Sherlock's heart is a heavy stone in his throat. The day comes where John finally takes pity on him and sets the record straight. He can't believe he let himself forget who John is, whose baby is swaddled in his arms. Of course John is just looking for a friend and a place to stay. Sherlock closes his eyes against it all. “Whatever you want, John. Whatever you want.”

A moment later: lips against his own. Soft, chapped. An accompanying hand cupping his jaw. Distantly, hysterically, he thinks he might drop the baby and tightens his arms as he opens his eyes. It isn't until he does that he truly realizes it's John, John Hamish Watson, his John who's known him and stood just beyond his grasp for years now, John kissing him with a desperate gentleness. He lets John, lets him kiss him and kiss him, tentative, closed-mouth kisses.

John sweetly sucks at his bottom lip, and Sherlock quivers, then sighs when John pulls away. They look right at each other now. John is more weary than Sherlock has ever seen him. “I _want_ you.” His voice is ragged. “You're _all I want_.”

Sherlock can't speak, can only curl his body into John's. John pulls him impossibly closer. Martha, cooing in her sleep, is unaware of the monumental nature of the moment.

“Say you want me too,” John pleads,

and Sherlock chokes out,

“Yes, God, John-- _yes_.”

John's gaze wavers between Sherlock's eyes and his lips. “We need to put the baby upstairs.”

***

They both lay naked in Sherlock's bed, Sherlock sprawled across John's bare chest, legs tangled together. Their skin shimmers with sweat and John smooths back Sherlock's hair from his flushed forehead. They kiss languidly, Martha's even breaths in the background over the baby monitor on the bedside table.

“Love you... Sherlock,” John murmurs feverishly between kisses, caressing Sherlock's face, throat, waist, anywhere he can reach. “'ve always loved you...”

Sherlock lets out a shivery moan, skin still sensitized in the afterglow. “John,” he starts, hesitantly. Not because he doesn't return the sentiment--exactly the opposite, and he's never said these words to anyone and really meant them. “I--” and Sherlock Holmes must be cursed because he's cut off by a wail over the baby monitor.

John is clearly torn, staring at Sherlock's lips guiltily like he can reverse time and hear what he was about to say. “I'm sorry, Sherlock, I've got to...” he mutters, shifting out from underneath Sherlock.

“Of course,” Sherlock replies hurriedly. Of course a newborn needs John's attention more than he does, even if he has waited years, and years... But John hesitates at the door after pulling on his discarded pair of boxers.

“Can I...”

“Yes. _”_

“Bring her back here?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“Because if--”

“Not at all.”

“Not to sleep—Just--”

“John. Yes,” Sherlock states plainly, wanting John back in his arms already.

John looks flummoxed but pleased. “Right, good,” he says dazedly, still hanging onto the doorframe and staring at Sherlock like he is the world's greatest unsolved mystery.

“John,” Sherlock mumbles around a little smile. “John, go get her.”

“Right--”

Sherlock turns up the baby monitor and ignores a suddenly overwhelming urge to yell into his pillow like a juvenile. Martha's cries die down into pitiful hiccuping sobs under John's low, gentle voice.

“Shh, shh... That's right, I've got you.”

Sherlock swallows hard around the lump in his throat and clutches a pillow to his chest.

“Don't you know much I love you, darling? I would do anything for you,” John murmurs upstairs, voice crackling over the baby monitor. Sherlock knows that John knows he can hear him. Knows that John's words are for both of them. Martha hiccups and settles, sobs turning to little shuddering breaths.

Sherlock hears footsteps retreating from the monitor and he turns it off as John reappears in the doorway, cradling a Martha who already looks close to sleep again.

Sherlock can't wait a moment longer. “I love you,” he tells John earnestly, more certain than he's ever been. John just smiles strangely at him over Martha's head. Sherlock tries again, more emphatically. “I said I _love_ you, so _please_ , come here.”

“Did you ever think,” John ponders instead, which is endlessly frustrating to Sherlock, “that you would have a family?”

Sherlock forces himself to honestly consider John's question and not just drag him back into bed. “I think...” he says slowly, like peeling back layers of skin to expose his fumbling heart. “I never expected someone to want me in theirs.”

John comes to bed after that.

They lay close together, foreheads touching over the baby on the mattress between them. They know they can't let her sleep there, John will have to put her back in her crib soon, so they treasure the moment while they're in it, a new family stitched together by words finally spoken.

 


End file.
